Forum Moderators: phranque
I'm at the office 70+ hours a week. Within that 70 hours, I probably spend an actual 5-15 hours actually doing design or maintenance. The majority of this time is spent checking email accounts, reading/posting to message boards, surfing, chatting. The only time I actually do design websites is when the internet connection in our building goes out and I can't surf.
I make enough to pay all business expenses and personal bills, but I recognize that I am still wasting time. I need some serious advice on how I can revamp how I do things in my office, manage my time. Feedback, book suggestions, other recommendations appreciated.
Preferably a cute college chick
That's what i'd do anyway
Just my 2 pennies
matimer
I spend very little time on the phone because I usually work at night. Im trying to determine ways to work more effectively without getting sidetracked.
One thing these have in common is the very practical advice of keeping detailed records.
Money budget, record what you spend. Diet, everything you eat. Etc.
Because you're keeping records, you'll try avoiding the stuff that makes you look bad, or the stuff that really blows your "budget" or "allotment" or "plan".
Try applying that to time. Try it for a week (time started, time finished, activity content). After a week, review it. Rank stuff as "helpful" or "unhelpful" (binary or likert scale 1-5). Make a goal to decrease the "unhelpful" stuff by 10% a day, and replace it with the "helpful" stuff.
[edited by: saoi_jp at 12:26 pm (utc) on June 7, 2004]
One thing that has worked for me is to write up a 'to do' list each night before retiring. I don't make the list too long or detailed, but I make sure there are enough objectives on the list that, if I complete it, I will have considered it to have been a productive day. It's also quite motivating to check each item off as I do them to the point I actually end up exceeding the list more times than not. Not that the wife believes me when I tell her that tho'.
Or is this ( disbelief thingy ) just hardcoded genetically into women? :)
I'll take 'the fifth' on that on the grounds it'll probably earn me a beating. ;)
Anyway, what I've done for myself (*sigh* sometimes it works, sometimes not - I'm a HORRIBLE procrastinator which I justify by saying I "work well to deadline"....) is use a paper planner. Yeah. In the electronic age, the 21st century.... It works for me, because the simple act of physically writing something down seems almost to REQUIRE that I "take care of it" preferably sooner rather than later.
Franklin Quest is my favorite. Pricey I suppose, though less so than FiloFax. I've probably tried every one out there in the last 4 years. I couldn't get the one I loved from FQ this year, so I'm using the Circadex from Levenger, which is laid out well, and is "different" so is fun in that direction.
Fun is important. Don't kid yourself....
Without a goal you have not purpose...pick a purpose for what you are doing, then make your list of what you need to do. Then it is just plain discipline!
If you have developed your website to the level it is, you must have done something in the past to get it there...why not set a goal to "get bigger". This may be the motivation you need to actually site down and accomplish the goal.
PS...I am the wife ( not yours of course) we never get to see this hypothetical list :)
reading/posting to message boards, surfing, chatting.this is where you need to do time management. I set aside time in the evening to do the above. Since there is so much information to get and share from reading/posting ... setting the last couple of hours in the day for this seems to work for me. Email is check first thing in the morning again at noon once more at 3 my email is used stricly for business, personal emails are sent to another email address which is check during non working times. I work mostly from home and have had to let friends and family know just becaus I work from home that does not mean I don't work, and to please refrain from calling me with personal issues until 6pm unless it's an emergency. If you think you like the socilaizations of contacting people more than design then perhaps you should hire someone to do design and you handle sales/marketing/advertising.
I do try to keep things organized on paper when possible, a checklist of what needs to be done that day/week.
I suppose I just get caught up with things, primarily with posting to message boards. I don't anticipate posting, but I see an interesting topic related to something I know about and jump in. That alone eats up a good bit of my time (or corresponding with people on community type websites).
I try to set myself tasks to complete before doing things I like to do when I procrastinate.
Like... before I have another look at my adsense stats, I must sort out why the floated div isn't working properly in Opera.
Or (more likely)... before I start playing with a new CSS design or designing a new graphic logo, I must write an article.
